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Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

sundaypost.com

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Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#31

Post by ryukafalz »

alophawen wrote: post #6
mealkh wrote: post #2

I have to say, this is really concerning. I assumed it was bad, but this sounds really REALLY bad. How would we even go about attempting to coordinate a response to this? Strongarming polluting countries into enforcing compliance? Massive economic uplift projects / infrastructure investments for waste treatment and new materials? Ban of products, trying to catch the job loss somehow? I'm at my wit's end.

There is nothing we as individuals can do about it. Global industry pollution should have been internationally controlled decades ago if we would have had any chance of ducking this. Many has screamed about this for years, recently Greta. 2 years of covid pandemic gave the earth some breathing-room but seems in hindsight only to have slowed down the end date by about 6 months, according to recent graphs. The decision…

Discourses of climate delay, doomism (with a side of whataboutism):

https://preview.redd.it/588iz6x790a51.png?auto=webp&s=c5eaf1...

Individuals, collectively, can absolutely have an impact. The problem is still that not enough people actually care or are paying attention. If we had anywhere near the entire population demanding changes, we’d get changes!

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#32

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

brutusborn wrote: post #22
alophawen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You try to discredit a serious article about a subject you should be well aware is 100% true by now even if you were in fact living under a rock.-- by siding with random anon redditor that had a take more suitable for your world view. It is not surprising the least why we are in this rut.

Yes, a lot of people (including myself) like to be skeptical of extreme claims. Environmentalists making sensational claims from single studies tends to be counterproductive because if they are found to be wrong, they are used as ammo by climate skeptics. If they are right, then they will be backed up by other studies; so it is better to wait until certain before publishing things like "all but gone." I

The article says the researcerhs spent "two years collecting water samples from the Atlantic". Assuming they didn't completely mess up their sampling or simply fabricated their data, that should be enough time to wait, I think.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#33

Post by carapace »

ac29 wrote: post #29
carapace wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tiny bloom in Bristol Channel doesn't contradict the findings of the scientists.

The article says "fish, whales and dolphins [will] become extinct" in "a few years". That is an extraordinary claim.

It follows pretty directly from the absence of plankton, eh?

I don't doubt that there are people out there monitoring plankton levels from satellite images, and they could probably clear things up on where we actually stand in re: ocean life and trends thereof. But not a few randos on reddit, eh?

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#34

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #8

This is absolute garbage. Saying the plankton are gone is incredibly unlikely and requires extraordinary evidence. We can see plankton from space https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/globalmaps/data/MY1DMM... and what we see in no way correlates with “the plankton is all gone”.

The article reports that 90% of plankton is gone, not "the plankton are gone". Additionally, it seems that this is a correction of an earlier estimate according to which 50% of the plankton should be gone by now:

>> The landmark research blames chemical pollution from plastics, farm fertilisers and pharmaceuticals in the water. Previously, it was thought the amount of plankton had halved since the 1940s, but the evidence gathered by the Scots suggest 90% has now vanished.

Even if this correction is an overestimate, and the old estimate was right, the quantities of plankton halving since 1940 is still a disturbingly high amount of reduction. As to seeing plankton from space that doesn't really say anything unless we know what proportion of the plankton that exists is visible from space. For instance, it might not be possible to estimate total plankton quantities just from looking at a picture with a particular "bloom" concentrated in an area.

I'm surprised about these numbers also but I don't know how I could easily trash the research reported, just because I've seen pictures of plankton. I think that's just making an overgeneralisation.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#35

Post by tshaddox »

myshpa wrote: post #9
alophawen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing we as individuals can do about it. Global industry pollution should have been internationally controlled decades ago if we would have had any chance of ducking this. Many has screamed about this for years, recently Greta. 2 years of covid pandemic gave the earth some breathing-room but seems in hindsight only to have slowed down the end date by about 6 months, according to recent graphs. The decision…

Stop. Please stop it. Defeatism won't help us. In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. We as individuals can do plenty. We can change our eating and spending habits (cocacola & burger anyone?), we can demand change, we can stop buying stuff, we can protest, we can educate, we can plant trees and forests, we can stop people spreading defeatism etc. So…

> In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo.

I would have thought exactly the opposite: that these groups would adopt the strategy of portraying these types of issues as being primarily about “individual responsibility” knowing that the only way to actually change things is collective action.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#36

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ac29 wrote: post #29
carapace wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tiny bloom in Bristol Channel doesn't contradict the findings of the scientists.

The article says "fish, whales and dolphins [will] become extinct" in "a few years". That is an extraordinary claim.

Is it really? We're in the middle of a mass extinction caused by our activities:

The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction,[3][4] is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity.[5][6][7][8] The included extinctions span numerous families of bacteria, fungi, plants[9][10][11] and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates. With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as coral reefs and rainforests, as well as other areas, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

This has been going on for a very long time and there's clear signs the rate of environmental destruction is accelerating. At some point we will lose the fish and cetaceans. There is no doubt about that. To say that this time has finally come is not such an extraordinary claim.

Anyway I'm sure that scientists have been warning about this (the destruction of the oceans' ability to sustain life) for decades and nothing has been done. It makes sense that, either those scientists were wrong in their warnings, or fish and marine mammals will die out, sooner or later. So what makes it extraordinary?

I mean, that's why people say destroying the environment is not a good idea, right?

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#37

Post by more_corn »

tshaddox wrote: post #35
myshpa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop. Please stop it. Defeatism won't help us. In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. We as individuals can do plenty. We can change our eating and spending habits (cocacola & burger anyone?), we can demand change, we can stop buying stuff, we can protest, we can educate, we can plant trees and forests, we can stop people spreading defeatism etc. So…

> In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. I would have thought exactly the opposite: that these groups would adopt the strategy of portraying these types of issues as being primarily about “individual responsibility” knowing that the only way to actually change things is collective action.

These are both well known strategies in misinformation campaigns.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#38

Post by AbrahamParangi »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #17
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #8

This is absolute garbage. Saying the plankton are gone is incredibly unlikely and requires extraordinary evidence. We can see plankton from space https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/globalmaps/data/MY1DMM... and what we see in no way correlates with “the plankton is all gone”.

You know that image was from 2002 right?

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MY1DMM_CHLORA/... Interactive up to 2016

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#39

Post by ratboy666 »

Oh, really -

Phytoplankton bloom with 700000 cells per liter density is visible to the naked eye.

This gives the colour (red, green, or brown) on the sea surface. This means that the satellite maps showing visible blooms may directly repudiate the article. Or not... Not my field of expertise.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#40

Post by brutusborn »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #32
brutusborn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a lot of people (including myself) like to be skeptical of extreme claims. Environmentalists making sensational claims from single studies tends to be counterproductive because if they are found to be wrong, they are used as ammo by climate skeptics. If they are right, then they will be backed up by other studies; so it is better to wait until certain before publishing things like "all but gone." I

The article says the researcerhs spent "two years collecting water samples from the Atlantic". Assuming they didn't completely mess up their sampling or simply fabricated their data, that should be enough time to wait, I think.

It's not about how long it takes to get one result, but how many other studies agree with that result. I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm just saying their extreme rhetoric isn't useful at convincing people who aren't already agreeing with them.
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